Marmol denies report he 'wants out' of Chicago

May 15, 2013|By Paul Sullivan, Tribune reporter

Sunny skies over Wrigley Field before the Cubs and Rockies played on Wednesday. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol was surprised to learn Wednesday that a conversation he had with his agents in the lobby of his apartment building turned into an Internet story stating he wanted to be traded.

Marmol was in the lobby Wednesday morning with two of his representatives, Paul Kinzer and Scott Nelson, and another friend. He said his friend saw someone taking pictures of him surreptitiously, but the man left before they could figure out what he was doing.

Hours later, that person allegedly sent the photos to the Twitter account of bleachernation.com, a popular website that aggregates Cubs news and gossip from various media outlets.

Along with the photos of Marmol, Kinzer and Nelson, the tweets reported Marmol told his agents he “can’t wait” to get out of Chicago, and that one of the agents said “too bad Milwaukee isn’t doing well, that could have been an option.”

Marmol confirmed he and his agents met and were the ones in the photos, but denied all the quotes.

“I know what I said, and I didn’t say anything about baseball,” Marmol said. “That’s not true. I don’t know who that guy is or why he tweeted that.”

Was the individual spying on Marmol?

“He has to be,” Marmol said. “I didn’t know if the guy knows me or whatever, or why he said that. It’s kind of a joke. I don’t know what to say.”

Marmol has been on the trade block since last year, with no takers since the aborted deal with the Angels. He has to approve any trade, and repeated Wednesday he doesn’t want to leave the Cubs.

“I’m not going (anywhere),” he said. “I’m very happy here. I can’t wait until they do something and I can stay here. You know I always talk about how I love Chicago. I love being here, I love my teammates. …”

Marmol was able to laugh about the incident, even though he felt it was an invasion of privacy.

“I feel fine because it’s not true,” he said. “Honestly, that did not come from my mouth.”

The website later apologized for posting the tweets and photos.

Extra innings: Class-A Daytona outfielder Jorge Soler was named Florida State Player of the Week. … The Cubs bullpen came into Wednesday’s game with a 2.01 ERA over its previous eight games. … Jeff Samardzija’s second inning home run was the second of his career.